Casts for distinct types

You define a distinct type based on a built-in type or an existing opaque type or ROW type. Although data of the distinct type has the same length and alignment and is passed in the same way as data of the source type, the two cannot be compared directly. To compare a distinct type and its source type, you must explicitly cast one type to the other.

When you create a new distinct type, the database server automatically registers two explicit casts:

A cast from the distinct type to its source type
A cast from the source type to the distinct type

You can create an implicit cast between a distinct type and its source type. To create an implicit cast, however, you must first drop the default explicit cast between the distinct type and its source type.

You also can use all casts that have been registered for the source type without modification on the distinct type. You can also create and register new casts and support functions that apply only to the distinct type.

For examples that show how to create a cast function for a distinct type and register the function as cast, see the HCL OneDB™ Database Design and Implementation Guide.

Important: For releases of HCL OneDB earlier than Version 9.21, distinct data types inherited the built-in casts that are provided for the source type. The built-in casts of the source type are not inherited by distinct data types in this release.